Princeton failed to win the Nittany Lion Invitational this year after taking home the crown last season. The team shot a collective 932 for the weekend, led by senior co-captain Susannah Aboff, who left the green with a final score of 226. Close behind Aboff was her co-captain, senior Marlowe Boukis, who finished the tournament with a 234. While defending the title would have been ideal for the Tigers, taking fifth was not a poor showing in the eyes of Boukis.
“Ultimately, we would obviously like to win,” Boukis said. “It was a great course — not too challenging, but a very good test. It’s always fun to play there, but it was kinder to us last year. But you have to take what you can get, and it was certainly nice to be the best Ivy League school at the tournament.”
Indeed, unlike in last year’s event, the Tigers had a pair of other Ivy League schools to feel out and contend with early in the season, as both Columbia and Yale stepped up to the tee to try their luck against Princeton.
Both schools came up short, finishing sixth and seventh, respectively. Columbia finished three strokes behind the Tigers, while Yale took five more strokes.
The other three golfers in the Princeton contingent were junior Michelle Grilli, sophomore Kate Scarpetta and sophomore Maggie Boberg. Grilli, Scarpetta and Boberg closed out the tournament with scores of 236, 239 and 250, respectively.
The purpose of the first tournament for the Tigers was, however, mostly to get back into the groove of playing tournament-style golf.
“It was our first tournament, so we’re just trying to get all of our kinks out,” Boukis said. “You play better for the rest of the season after building on this first test.”
Boukis stressed the importance of having a strong mental game in golf. Because the sport is a test of how well you can execute time and again, it’s difficult to play at your best without having plenty of practice rounds under your belt.
“It’s about getting into the motion, getting into the mindset,” Boukis said. “This week was a good practice tournament. We played decently for just coming out of the summer and just starting practice.”
The men’s golf team attended the Wolf Run Intercollegiate in Indiana this past weekend and ran into a demon of a course, finishing 14th out of 14. It was the first tournament of the season for Princeton, but the Tigers certainly didn’t take on a light field to ease them into competition. They went up against a tough crowd of opposing teams, including Illinois, Louisville, Michigan and Kent State, all of which are ranked in the top 40 nationally.
“The tournament was a disaster on the scoreboard,” said senior captain Drew Maliniak, who is a staff writer for The Daily Princetonian. “The team continues to struggle mightily when faced with the pressure of the national stage, but we are still hopeful.”
Princeton did not put together its best outing, with 981 strokes as a team. Junior Juan Pablo Candela led the team with a final score of 241, good for 60th overall. Maliniak followed Candela with a score of 252, posting solid scores of 82 and 77 before finishing with a rough 93. Junior Gregory Stamas and sophomore Eric Salazar also played, posting scores of 253 and 254, respectively.
Wolf Run, a difficult course in its own right, was rendered more challenging by the erratic weather over the course of the weekend.
“A challenging course under hellish conditions is the best barometer for identifying the best players,” Maliniak said. “That is why the U.S. Open setup is what it is.”
Strong winds affected most players’ drives throughout the first day of play on Saturday, and threatening rains ultimately delayed play on Sunday for an hour. Such harsh conditions led to haphazard rounds and varying degrees of difficulty depending on what time of day a golfer played a particular hole.
Princeton also finished last in its first tournament last year. The Tigers now hope to continue mimicking their performance from last year. In its second tournament of 2007, Princeton progressed dramatically and finished seventh in a field of 18.
“We still believe that our team can change and is changing for the better even if we might accomplish that change slower than we want,” Maliniak said. “We must improve our practice in order to play at that level. Besides mental preparation, improving our short game tops the list.”
The Tigers will have a chance to improve on their performance next weekend, when they travel to the McLaughlin Invitational in Farmingdale, N.Y.
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